Situation Normal
by SparkeyScene
Summary: DEATH'S HEAD. A Sergeant from Fort Libidad goes rogue after redeployment and ends up in Golden Memories.


**Okay, this is probably a bad idea. I keep writing more and more but don't do a lot on my Mass Effect one... I know the symptoms when I see them lol. If updates drop off you guys have to shoot me, it's the only way I'll keep it up.**

**I changed things up to make it fit because I wanted to. Any problems feel free to flame in the comments. I don't really care :).**

* * *

><p><strong>Situation Normal<strong>

The knife cut deep, slicing the guy from groin to throat. Just the way it's supposed to be. Someone threatens you, you gut them. Someone guts you after that, it's just business.

I stare around the group, challenging them. If they want to try it, so be it. I'm not going to say I'd manage it, but I'll at least take a couple of them with me. But, as is to be expected after watching me gut their strongest, they all slink away muttering about coming back for me while I'm sleeping. I guess nobody told them I don't sleep.

Their first mistake, that being the one that caused them to lose, was showing their hand too early. You never show your best card first, never. It's a fools error but I never claimed those guys were anything else.

The reason I was surrounded by eight guys, all carrying fairly offensive weapons? I guess you could say I pissed off their boss... But that'd be too polite.

Three days ago a man named Barla Von - ain't that the stupidest name you've ever heard - decided that it would be a good idea to murder the three young children of one of his clients.

His client being the wealthiest man in the city and Barla Von being the lowest scum of it's underbelly, Barla Von had tried to extort the man. Protection money, he called it. Protection from your entire family being murdered and your house burned to the ground. Mr Von didn't like being refused. Not. One. Bit. This is around when the child murdering happened, throw in a threat to murder his clients wife and you've got one very unhappy client.

So the client came to me. I'm Jem Sanders. Mercenary, hired thug, professional killer. Whatever you want to call me, my job's pretty simple. I get hired by people to kill other people - then I usually end up having to kill the person that employed me, but that's a different story for a different time.

People call me 'Snafu'.

"Sleep well and a better life nex' time." I mutter in my Cajun drawl over the dead guy, who just so happened to be Barla Von. This was my latest job. Kill a murderer for cash. It's not an especially attractive job but it pays and I enjoy it. In my defence, I don't kill children. That's not how my job works, nobody takes out a contract on a child unless they're seriously fucked. I won't take a job from someone like that.

Barla Von doesn't deserve my respect or the soldier's prayer I offer but I give it anyway, it's the only thing you **can** give to the dead. Besides, he had a pretty good go at gutting me himself. I'm going to end up with new scars across my cheek and my stomach. But that's nothing I can't handle.

Right now I'm wondering if I should hunt out the rest of the group. Find them in their stinking holes and gut them too.

I decide they can wait. Now, it's time to find a bar in the stinking caldera of Farlight. Down in the lowest levels, the smog is so thick you can't even breathe. In the upper levels the air is so thin it's the same. It's a city built from materials only meant to last five years, yet they've been standing for fifty. The populace is mainly vagrants, ne'er-do-wells, mercenaries, pirates, theives. People you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Unfortunately, the lower part of Farlight is full of dark alleys.

I wander into a bar with a tacky sign over the door. Golden Memories. Sounds like something that fell right out of an ancient vid. But if the beer's cheap, watered down and warm then it's good for me. That's about the only kind of beer you're going to find this end of the Spiral Arm. Unless you count the beer in the Death's Head HQ the other side of the square.

I'm not supposed to know about it. But I do. How I know is simple, even Death's Head need people to do their dirty work for them.

I sit on a stool at the bar. The woman behind looks over my uniform, her eyebrows raised. She doesn't know me. I imagine she knows everyone from around here. Only problem is that I'm not from around here. She places a beer before me and I hand over the cash. It's a silver, but I give her a gold. What can I say, I'm feeling generous. I get another two beers on the house. Generosity pays. Although technically I paid for one of them.

"So where you from, soldier?"

She thinks I'm Militia. An easy mistake to make, I **am** wearing the uniform. The patches are cut away, nothing reveals my rank. That's probably because I don't have a rank. I'm not militia. It's just helpful to look like you have the right to carry a knife in open view around the city. I pull said knife from it's sheath and lay it on the counter.

You can tell a lot about a person from the knife they choose. For example, Barla Von's knife was around the size of a Bowie knife with deep slots cut into the back that were intended to say _I'm prepared to drag the guts of my enemy through an open wound in their stomach._ My knife is different, more subtle. It's half the size of Von's, plain steel, rust free and razor sharp. The blade glistens in the dull light of the bar, turning heads.

A man stands and presses an old school revolver, pulled from the inside pocket of a grubby leather jacket, to the back of my head.

"Easy there friend."

I grin. Nobody here seems to realise that I don't want to cause trouble. Nobody here seems to realise that I just want to drink my beer and be left in peace.

"Neen. Leave it."

A deep voice, clearly the leader as the gun leaves the back of my head without a seconds hesitation. I turn around on the stool and find myself looking up at a broad man. His right arm is black, more than likely prosthetic by the look of the sliding plates around his elbow. He's holding a Death's Head dagger in his left hand. The kind that is supposed to be ceremonial. This says a lot about the man. He doesn't respect authority or conform to expectations. However, he also belongs to the Death's Head.

"You mus' be Sven."

He grins wolfishly.

"That depends who's asking."

I laugh, long and deep. I like this man. He's to the point and doesn't seem too bothered that I've now got my knife in my hand. I have no intention to fight, I just want him to know that I'm proficient with my tool of the trade.

"I'd put that away unless you plan on using it."

"I plan on usin' it, trust me."

I pull an apple out of my pocket, cutting off a slice. Sven grins again. Heads turn to a commotion at the door of the bar that I assume belongs to Sven. I first heard about Sven at the Death's Head HQ. Couldn't quite believe they'd found him living with Ferox out at Fort Libidad. Talk says he was ex-Legion and survived two executions. I never know what to believe, but seeing this guy I'm guessing that most of the hearsay is actually true.

The commotion at the door gets louder until a group of four people stand before me, Sven and Neen. Two more people come out of the shadows, both women and dressed in militia uniforms. These must be part of the security here, along with that Neen guy that nearly shot me earlier.

One of the four pulls a knife from his pocket. I notice with amusement that it's the exact same knife that Barla Von was using earlier. Even down to the little monogram on the blade that carries Barla Von's name. I didn't take it because I don't need it and you don't scavenge from the dead unless you need ammunition. I didn't.

"Nice knife."

I step forward, slicing another piece off my apple and chewing on it absentmindedly. My eyes are focussed on the man before me. The one with Barla Von's knife. I didn't take any care to learn the mans name. I didn't have to. And even if I'd wanted to, he didn't give me chance to ask.

He lunged for my left side and I sidestepped lazily, still watching his eyes. He stepped closer, jabbing at my stomach. I refused to get wounded by the same knife in two different fights. I slid back, leaning to the left and placing a small yet deep cut on his arm. It dropped, limp with pain. I ducked and moved to the right, aiming for the tendons in his right leg. My knife slid through the old material of his trousers like it was butter. Tendons were sheared. I made sure the cuts weren't clean. This man deserved pain.

He dropped, his right leg useless. In his desperation he reached out with his right hand, trying to catch my arm. It didn't work. I pulled his arm and he toppled over. Dropping to the floor and keeping my eyes on the rest of his group, I slit his throat. Blood gushed over the floor and down his clothes. It's not like he'll care now.

I stood and stepped over the corpse towards the rest of the group. They shied away. Again, another group that played their strongest first. Everybody in this place is thick. The level of intelligence is incredible. If I can out-think these monkeys then something's wrong. I picked up Barla Von's knife and tossed it to one of the men stood in the doorway of Golden Memories.

"G' ahead."

He looked scared. I can't blame him. But I guess he respected his boss because he came at me, knife raised. Big mistake. You never raise a knife. It leaves your gut open, and that's where I aim. Another one cut from groin to throat. It's the most effective way. A mess of bloodand entrails spills onto the floor of the bar. I have no doubt that Sven will get someone to clean it up later. Fat corpses rot faster in this heat. Don't ask me why.

In the instant after the man drops to the floor I decided that I like the girl behind the bar. She walks around me and opens a window. Then again, most of the girls in Calinda Gap will have probably seen this kind of thing before. More than likely twice.

The rest of the men flee, eyes flicking between me and Sven as they walk backwards. No fast movements. Just like when you confront a wild animal. Is that what they think of me? So be it. I can probably run with that.

"Who are you?"

A young girl, no older than fifteen, is staring at me from behind the bar. I grin, my lips pulling up at one side to reveal sharp teeth.

"Call me Snafu."

"Shit."

A muted whisper runs through the bar and Sven walks over to the girl. He's more than likely telling her to go upstairs until everything is cleaned up but to my surprise she actually helps to move the body. Her and Neen drag it outside while Sven beckons me to a seat at the bar.

The girl behind the bar with long blonde hair - I now know her name is Lisa - turns to me.

"Why is your hair like that?"

My answer is simple.

"I'm not Ferox."

Sven looks shocked. Turning to me, I see him study me closely. I never pegged him for the studying type. Everybody else seems to think that he doesn't have a _capacity for advanced cognition._ I figure it means he can't think like everybody else. I realise now that piece of hearsay is a lie. It's not a surprise considering it's the NCO's that say it. They're all about poncy words and putting everybody else down. Me... if they can kill something with a knife in a combat situation then they're alright by me.

I answer Sven's unasked question.

"I was at Fort Libidad for two years. At the same time as you. You just never saw me."

He raises his eyebrow.

"You might know me better as Jem Sanders."

Sven's eyes widen again.

"Sergeant Sanders?"

I nod.

"You were the one I punched?"

I nod again.

"So you were the one who found the wanting offensive."

Again, I nod. And suddenly, everyone is on the same page.

I know, I just ranted about NCO's when I used to be one. However, I **used** to be one. I'm not anymore. Being an NCO wasn't good for me. A lot of people died. Sven was supposed to be one of them, I just didn't realise that I would be bumping into **that** Sven again anytime soon. **That** Sven didn't have a last name. **That** Sven didn't have a command. **That** Sven was just an animal in a cage. **This **Sven was Sven Tveskoeg. Death's Head, First Lieutenant, Obsidian Cross Second Class.

"You know that I should kill you for coming into my bar after all this time."

Nodding is getting annoying but I do it again anyway.

"So why are you here."

"I didn't realise it was your bar. And I didn't realise you were the same Sven. First Lieutenant in the Death's head, quite an achievement with such insubordination."

I laugh. It is funny.

In the Legion Sven was just expected to die. That was why he ended up there. He didn't die in an afternoon of sporting fun so we took him in. After that he just managed to stay alive. I don't know how he did it but he managed. Even after the bull hide whip. Nobody survives fifty lashes of that. Nobody survives fifteen. Yet he managed seventeen. I only know that because someone told me at the Death's Head HQ. Colonel Nuevo wasn't too keen on Sven. I say **wasn't** because Nuevo's dead, he committed suicide at Ilseville. I left Fort Libidad two days before it was attacked by Ferox. The only reason I got out was because I was redeployed to a godforsaked ringworld called Hekati to keep control of the local mining gangs. That was before I went AWOL. But that's a story for another time.

"You have a strange accent."

Neen sat beside me, the blood of my most recent kill still staining his hands.

"Cajun. It's old Earth."

All eyes turned to me. Speaking about Earth was heresy. Not speaking about Earth was also heresy. According to our dearest leader OctoV, anyway. To be honest, I couldn't give two shits what OctoV says is right and wrong. OctoV is a mass murdering maniac sending good men to their death. I only feel this way because I was one of those men - women technically.

Sven was grinning again.

"I have a proposition for you..."

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, I know this is a deivation and I really REALLY <em>REALLY <em>should be working on Kids From Yesterday but I had to do it. I'm not sure if this even has a category but I'll find one :).**


End file.
